Thursday, November 30, 2006

Doctor, Doctor...

Give me the news!

It wasn't good news. But it wasn't bad news. I was able to get The Purple Dragon to the doctor at 8:45 am. Naturally she no longer had a fever. Apparently the Motrin I gave her at 6:30 this morning worked - the 6:30 temp of 104.4 was gone. All gone. The Purple Dragon was bouncing around the office singing. Her eyes were still glazed over though and she kept trying to pass out in the car on the way to the doctor's office - obviously not herself. The goal? Convince the doctor of that very fact.

I explained what our night had been like and everything we had done to cool our little girl off. The doctor seemed a bit skeptical of the noted temperatures, but didn't raise a fuss. She ordered a strep test...

[Mommy, I'll go the the doctor but PLEASE don't let them put a stick in my mouth!]

and she checked her ears...

[This one looks a little red, but it's not infected. Has she had an ear infection?]

checked for a rash...

[Nope... nothing there...]

and asked her to pee in a cup...

[I have a hard time doing that on command! So... lots of water and a couple of hours later...]

and everything came back negative.

We have no clue what is wrong with The Dragon. She now has a prescription for antibiotics (and so do I - I have a sinus infection!), and we are monitoring her.

Her fever went from 'normal' to 103 in 20 minutes at about 12:30. She slept from 2:00 until 5:00 - passed out. And still feverish. Her fever was still at 102 an hour and a half after I gave her more motrin.

She won't eat. She doesn't want to drink though I am doing everything I can to encourage her. She seems a little happier right now, but after sleeping for 3 hours, I think she just has a little energy boost. She is still feverish.

I was going to say that there is nothing worse than not knowing what is wrong with your child. But, there is something. Knowing what's wrong and not being able to fix it. So I'm OK. I'm worried a little, but I'm OK. I KNOW that kids sometimes get fevers for unexplained reasons - but they are usually not this HIGH of a temperature. So we are waiting to see what happens. They are doing a culture on her urine and maybe that will reveal more results. But we probably won't get the results until Monday. At least we have antibiotics. If it is some kind of infection, they can get to work fighting it.

Fever!

Fever in the morning, Fever all through the night...

The Purple Dragon woke up crying at about 9:30 last night. She was on fire. The digital ear thermometer read, I kid you not, 105.7. The other ear said 104.4. A better number, for sure, but enough to make me panic. We've been monitoring her all night, and the lowest we've been able to get her temperature to go is 102.3 using Tylenol, Motrin, and washcloths to cool her off. She's sleeping in her underwear, with only a sheet to cover-up.

We made a call to her doctor who seemed to think that we wouldn't need to take her in until this morning (when the office opens) which I agree with and disagree with. The high fever makes me worry, but our only option for 'service' was to go to the hospital or one of those 24-hour urgent care type places. It wouldn't be our doctor we would be seeing, or even anyone affiliated with the practice (unless she was actually admitted to the hospital), and my experience in the past has been that they tend to brush you off and not really help matters any. So we didn't go. Her doctor will be available in an hour.

I, of course, am hoping it's 'nothing' -- but 'something' must be causing a fever that high. If she had a fever of 102 with no other symptoms, I wouldn't worry so much. This is different.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Christmas Decor

Our house is decorated for Christmas! Plus, we even got a surprise snowstorm. I am LOVING it.

Our home...

My creativity...

I love my 'Santa Key' though I cannot take credit for the idea. There are many stores that sell such a thing, and there are many different versions of the poem floating around the internet. I took the poem I liked the most (no author was credited that I could find), revised it a little, and came up with the frame idea.

Since the pictures makes it almost completely impossible to read the poem, here's a copy of it for you:

Santa's Magic Key

Our stockings hang upon a wall,For we have no fireplace at all!You see, the problem is quite clear,Santa, how will you get in here?

We heard a legend. Is it true?Of magic only you can do.We're leaving you a special key,Marking it 'Santa' as you can see.

Your magic makes the key fit right,So you can get inside tonight.Thank you Santa, here's our key,The milk and cookies are on me!

Creative Stocking Hanger...

Another burst of creativity led me to this solution for hanging our stockings. I love it! My friend Lisa Barker made the vinyl lettering for me.

SLOW DOWN!

Ok, my mind is racing and I can't seem to slow it down enough to think, so I am simply posting to try and keep my blog fairly updated, but I have all these things that I want to do and some things that I need to do and they are all so much fun and exciting and cute and nifty and crafty and and and and and and I simply must go and do some of these projects before I explode!

I also have many things to tell you like about how our Thanksgiving went and my adventures on Black Friday and what we did today and what showed up at our house today and what I made Michael do today because I love him and other important and non-important stuff like that.

But I can't because I'm going to explode unless I go and do something fun and exciting and cute and nifty and crafty. Ok? Ok.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving!

O'er the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go!

We'll be heading out the door around noon. We've made 4 pies (how's that for Holly Homemaker, Gail?!?), and King Isepik cooked the turkey. My Mom has severe poultry allergies, so it can't be cooked at her house. Once it's cooked, it's OK -- as long as she doesn't eat it.

I spoke to my Dad last night on the telephone. I was attempting to talk to Mom, but she couldn't come to the phone. We had a nice conversation. It ended like this:

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Leaves Are Falling Down

It seemed like the leaves stayed on our trees forever. I'm not complaining, but it was rather strange.

Then of course, they finally did cascade to the earth and they covered our lawn for, well, forever. That's because we never bothered to rake them up. And I wouldn't allow the King to mow them up, because then you don't get to jump in them. And we HAVE to let the girls JUMP in them so that I can take pictures. It's proof that we actually had fun and did stuff together at some point in their childhood.

Monday, November 20, 2006

The King Is Chatty Tonight!

I spent the evening at the store futilely trying to purchase things for Thanksgiving. Like a turkey baster. They were sold out. I guess I'll try a different store tomorrow. Or maybe we'll just borrow one from somebody - I'm guessing my Grandpa has one.

Anyway, I finally get home and I hear King Isepik talking on the phone to someone about British English. I am confused. Who would Isepik be talking to about British English? Oh! Wait! I know... Cathryn. And I was right.

Cathryn says she can't join us for Thanksgiving Dinner because she just got invited somewhere else yesterday. She'll be spending it with the Bishopric. I am sure she will have a very nice time, but I think she should come party with us anyway. :)

I need to start calling The King on the phone. He is apparently very talkative when he is on the phone... at least when he's talking to Cathryn! LOL.

I could write lots more things about what Cathryn and Isepik are talking about but I'm not going to in case Cathryn does make it here for Thanksgiving. I only want her to say nice things about us!!! She's very observant, so I think it's dangerous to invite her to visit us... who knows what evils she may discover about my family.

Ok, that's it. Today was boring and I accomplished very little. My fingers are also frozen so it is very difficult to type. Now I am going to go attempt to make The King yelp by placing my frozen fingers somewhere on him. Cover your ears Cathryn!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Running

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle -- when the sun comes up, you had better be running.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Knock, Knock!

Earlier this week, The Purple Dragon was hiding in our bedroom closet while I was folding laundry. She started knocking on the closet door, which of course turned into 'Knock, Knock' jokes. Here's how they went (The Purple Dragon provided the answers):

Knock, Knock!Who's There?Dragon!Dragon who?Dragon who is hiding in the closet!

Knock, Knock!Who's There?Dragon!Dragon who?Dragon who is four years old!

Knock, Knock!Who's There?Dragon!Dragon who?Dragon who loves you!

and... Dragon who loves The Pink Princess!and... Dragon who loves Daddy!and... Dragon who likes to eat peaches!and... Dragon who wants a lollypop!and... Dragon who likes to eat bananas!and... Dragon who likes purple!and... Dragon who needs to go potty!and... well you get the idea.

I must say that she has a much better grasp on jokes than The Pink Princess did at her age. I taught The Princess the joke that goes

Friday, November 17, 2006

Defrosting and Icicles

Yesterday I realized a bit too late that I forgot to thaw the chicken for dinner. I don't particularly like using the microwave for defrosting because sometimes the edges of the chicken start to cook, and it's simply not very good by the time you finally get around to eating it. This problem was going to require some creativity if I was determined to still have chicken to dinner. No worries, I have concocted a new way to defrost chicken! It only takes a couple of hours, and none of the chicken 'cooks' AND it still remains cold enough that you can convince yourself that it's still OK to eat (you know, no worries about weird bacteria growing, etc). Are you ready for my completely whacked solution? I put the chicken on a plate and wrapped it in Saran Wrap like I would to defrost it the normal way. But then, I placed the entire thing on top of one of our heater vents. Genius! I rotated the chicken about once an hour, and it thawed to perfection. Normal? No. But it worked.

Last night after I went to bed, I curled myself up on my side of the bed being very careful not to touch King Isepik because I didn't want to wake him with my frozen self. He woke up anyway, and wanted to snuggle, so he told me to 'come here.' Since I'm so obedient (ha ha ha), I immediately cuddled up and proceeded to stick my feet on The King's leg. The King yelped. And hollered. And wimpered. And begged me to remove my icicle toes from his leg. I complied. But it was funny. So I touched him again. The scene repeated itself. Again. And again. And I couldn't stop because it was soooo funny. (It was probably even funnier to me because I was delirious with exhaustion). But The King was miserable and so I got out of bed and threw a sweatshirt on over what I was already wearing, and found a pair of socks. I proceeded to put my feet back on his legs, but he yelped again. I was surprised that he had the same reaction even though I had socks on. But no, new problem. Apparently a portion of my legs were uncovered and they were PRICKLY icicles. The forest needs to be cut down. :)

I really wasn't intending to torture The King. Honest!

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the REASON I was up till all hours of the night and frozen. Blame Oh The Joys (gosh, she's getting a lot of linkbacks from me lately), for pointing me to this game. It's evil. :)

I'm Still Here... Just Don't Look At The Time!

Ok, so I've disappeared for over a week or something like that. I've been having a pity party of sorts just because my wee brain cannot seem to find anything that is worthy to write about. I figure you deserve some kind of an update though, so I am here for a few minutes before I stumble off to bed.

First, the up-to-the-minute news: It hurts to type because my fingers are frozen (it's very very cold in the basement).

The Purple Dragon is still her fairly happy self, but she seems to be dealing with a touch of the stomach flu. No, she's not spurting fire (or anything else, thank heavens!), but she doesn't want to eat much, and there's lots of liquid slush coming out of her behind. Fun, fun. She's on 'vacation' from preschool until after Thanksgiving.

The Pink Princess is still her fairly moody self, but we love her anyway. She seems to enjoy school for the most part, and is doing very well, but she despises any kind of work. Period.

King Isepik is relatively happy, I think. He mentioned on his blog that he got a raise and a promotion, and we were (key word = were) very happy about it. Then the President of the Company informed The King that the Owner nixed almost all of the raise. Now, we're happy that there is still a raise involved, but frankly, I'm annoyed that one person would say "your raise is going to be this much" only to nix it almost TWO WEEKS later. It's just a crummy thing to do. You'd have to ask The King about his opinions on the situation, but I think they are fairly in line with my feelings.

HUSH HUSH! I've got a secret to tell you. In light of the recent promotion (before we found out about the salary decrease) we purchased a Disneyland Vacation! We're leaving December 26 and returning January 1. The Princess and The Dragon are blissfully unaware of the impending excitement, so please don't tell them. (Like any of you talk to them anyway... but still!) We hope to have fun with the other bajillion people who will be joining us at 'The Happiest Place On Earth.'

What else, what else... oh yes! On Tuesday morning I woke up with a killer sinus infection with the mother of all headaches to go along with it. Ouch. I took pain meds, of course, then took The Purple Dragon to preschool where I had to co-op and my headache was serenaded with the screeching of a 3-year-old banshee for almost the entire THREE HOURS. More meds did not help. More meds after that did not help. Chocolate did not help. A trip to the moon did not help. But finally, after more than 24 hours of pure agony, I was released from my prison and the headache was gone. Bliss.

The King and I saw "The Man Of La Mancha" on Wednesday night. It was much better than I thought it would be, but I'm not sure it's one of my favorites. The actors were very good though, and some of the music was fun. I already knew "The Impossible Dream" but the rest of the songs were new to me. My Mom claims that she played this record a lot when I was little, but I must've been VERY little, or she's remembering wrong. I do remember all the Peter, Paul & Mary records she used to play, in addition to the soundtrack of "Fiddler On The Roof" (TRADITION!).

Since I can't think anymore, and since I have to get up in THREE AND A HALF HOURS - this will be painful - I am going to go to bed.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

What Would You Do...

... if you were supposedly invited to a baby shower but you never received an invitation?

And the shower is less than 2 days away?

What if the shower is for your sister-in-law?

What if you and your sister-in-law don't seem to get along very well?

I'm getting her a present(s), no matter what. But I really don't want to go to the shower, I haven't been invited by 'paper' though I was sort-of 'oh by the way' invited if you count

SIL: "You heard I changed the date of my shower, right?"ME: "Oh I heard you were having a shower but..."SIL: "10:30 on Saturday."

as being an invitation. Bear in mind that I don't know WHERE this shower is being held either.

I really don't want to go. My Mother is (naturally!) putting a lot of pressure on me to go, she thinks that I just don't like SIL and am not going to spite her (not the case). It's true that we don't really get along, but I wouldn't NOT go for that reason. There is always a chance that the invitation got lost in the mail - but come on, it's 2 days before the shower and it still hasn't arrived AND the hostess hasn't called to follow up with people who haven't RSVP'd yet? I'm sorry, but at this point I'm really feeling like I would be crashing the party if I attended. I realize that some of you might point out that we recently moved (hence the invitation went to the wrong place), but a) she knows we moved, b) she's called to get our new address, c) she can always get our address from my other brother, my grandpa, or my Mom, and d), I've emailed her our new address at least once.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

A Tip For Purchasing Halloween Candy

I will freely admit it. I am a cheapskate when it comes to Halloween Candy. As much as I love all of those wonderful ooey, gooey, delicious chocolate bars, I don't buy them to give out as treats. Primarily because I will probably eat them all before I can give them away. If you were to come a-knocking at the Castle on Halloween, you would most likely receive something like this: Smarties, Tootsie Rolls, Dum Dums, Pixie Sticks, Bubble Gum or Taffy.

If you haven't noticed it yet, I am also a bargain shopper. So when all the Halloween stuff went on sale, I felt the urge to stock up on many items, including Halloween Candy. Yes folks, I sometimes buy Halloween Candy one year in advance. But there's a secret to it: DO NOT BUY CHOCOLATE. The Princess and The Dragon were the recipients of several pieces of chocolate that were obviously bought months ago (some, for example, were wrapped in Valentine paper), and they are some of the nastiest pieces of candy they or I have ever tasted. Just don't do it. Lolly Pops are usually fine. Anything that is basically sugar and ONLY sugar is usually fine. But NOT chocolate.

This year I purchased Pixie Sticks in bulk, and I even checked the expiration date. They'll be good through December of 2007. Trick or Treat, anyone?

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Pity Party

I am in some kind of funk. Perhaps it is because I am exhausted and I feel another round of Bronchitis coming on. Perhaps it is because I can no longer stand my house which is a filthy mess, though I have seen worse. Perhaps it is because getting up at 6:15 every freakin' morning is getting OLD, even though I know it's not really that early. Not to mention that half the time I'm falling asleep before 10:30... sometimes even before 10:00. Yeah, I know. Last night was midnight. But we're talking recent averages here. Perhaps I'm just annoyed because I didn't really want to change my blog but felt that I had too... just in case.

Life is not bad. I'm just... tired?

I'd like to give a shout out to a new blog friend, Oh The Joys. I really enjoy her style of writing and her sense of humor. Can I be her when I grow up?

I admire people who can find the humor and the joys in the humdrum of every day living. I am at the point where I no longer see the humor (was there ever any?) in the 3:45 pm temper tantrums that occur every day when The Pink Princess returns home from school. Is there any humor in my pint-sized Dragon Heloise who never fails to tell me what to pick up, when to do it, and never fails to point out that my bathroom stinks. I'm inclined to argue that it does NOT stink - but did I mention that my nose has been declared useless for its appointed purpose?

Here's the situation at my house over the past 10 minutes. The Pink Princess procured a cheap, small, purple yo-yo (that really doesn't yo-yo) from a friend at school. The Purple Dragon wants it because it's purple. The Dragon snatches the yo-yo from The Princess who then proceeds to scream, cry, and yell her way to The Queen (that would be me) to report this injustice. The Queen understands the injustice, and returns the yo-yo to The Princess who is happy once more. But alas! The Dragon strikes again!

The Queen offers to get a wonderful new yo-yo (from The Dungeon aka Storage) for The Dragon if she agrees to hand the yo-yo back to the distraught Princess. The Dragon decides to throw the yo-yo back. The Dragon is transported to her room, where The Queen is forced to hold the door shut in an attempt to contain the savage beast. The Princess is encouraged to take her prized plaything into her Pink Tower and barricade the door so that The Dragon cannot attack her again.

After a few minutes, The Dragon collapses on the floor of her room, and The Queen makes a run for freedom - stopping only for a moment to grab The Purple Dragon's 'Purple Dragon' Costume and manages to stash it in the Washing Machine (not to clean it - only to hide it) before The Purple Dragon notices the problem. The Queen then retreats to the Technological Centre where she proceeds to blog and not notice that The Purple Dragon is essentially cussing The Princess out through closed doors about her missing costume.

Hm. That is pretty funny, now that I think about it. But yet, I'm feeling bad for not really caring and especially for letting The Purple Dragon blame The Princess for the missing costume. Though, honestly, at this point I can only ASSUME (which only makes an ass out of u and me) that this is what the problem is. Perhaps The Dragon is still attempting to get the yo-yo that doesn't, and hasn't even noticed that the costume has flown the coop.

I want to be the kind of Mom who can gently explain to her furious offspring that because her behavior is unacceptable she won't be able to play with her beloved costume for a while. But no, I am the kind of Mom who retreats to the basement and bangs her head against the computer monitor in an effort to make her never-ending headache go away.

In other news, I do have some Halloween pictures to share with you, but they are in the camera which is elsewhere in the castle. It is quiet where I am, and I dare not leave. (Are they dead?) So I will have to hold you in suspense a while longer - you do have my most heartfelt apologies!